About August 17
August 17, 2025 is the 229th day of the year 2025 in the Gregorian calendar. There are 136 days remaining until the end of this year. The day of the week is Sunday.
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Leo is the sun sign of a person born on this day. Peridot is the modern birthstone for this month. Diamond is the mystical birthstone from Tibetan origin that dates back over a thousand years.
According to the lunisolar Chinese calendar, there are 184 days remaining before the start of the next Chinese New Year.
What Happened On August 17
- 986 –A Byzantine army is destroyed in the pass of Trajan’s Gate by the Bulgarians under the Comitopuli Samuel and Aron. The Byzantine emperor Basil II narrowly escaped.
- 1807 –Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
- 1864 –American Civil War: Battle of Gainesville – Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville, Florida.
- 1907 –Pike Place Market, a popular tourist destination and registered historic district in Seattle, opened.
- 1914 –World War I: Battle of Stalluponen – The German army of General Hermann von François defeats the Russian force commanded by Pavel Rennenkampf near modern-day Nesterov, Russia.
- 1918 –Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated.
- 1942 –World War II: U.S. Marines raid the Japanese-held Pacific island of Makin (Butaritari).
- 1943 –World War II: First Québec Conference of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King begins.
- 1943 –World War II: The Royal Air Force begins Operation Hydra, the first air raid of the Operation Crossbow strategic bombing campaign against Germany’s V-weapon programme.
- 1943 –World War II: The U.S. Eighth Air Force suffers the loss of 60 bombers on the Schweinfurt–Regensburg mission.
- 1945 –Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaim the independence of Indonesia, igniting the Indonesian National Revolution against the Dutch Empire.
- 1950 –Hill 303 massacre: American POWs were massacred by North Korean Army.
- 1953 –Addiction: First meeting of Narcotics Anonymous in Southern California.
- 1962 –East German border guards kill 18-year-old Peter Fechter as he attempts to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin becoming one of the first victims of the wall.
- 1970 –Venera Program: Venera 7 launched. It will later become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (Venus).
- 1978 –Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it lands in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.
- 1979 –Two Soviet Aeroflot jetliners collide in mid-air over Ukraine, killing 156.
- 1980 –Azaria Chamberlain disappears, probably taken by a dingo, leading to what was then the most publicised trial in Australian history.
- 1988 –Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel are killed in a plane crash.
- 2005 –The first forced evacuation of settlers, as part of the Israel unilateral disengagement plan, starts.
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